Genevieve Cora Fraser: A Little Piece of Ground

"A Little Piece of Ground"-
Emblematic of Palestine and a Matter of Shame for
Israel

By Genevieve Cora Fraser

I can see
why the full weight of Zionist propaganda and intimidation
tactics were leveled against Elizabeth Laird's children's
masterpiece, "A Little Piece of Ground," targeted at an 11-
14 year-old readership. Truth can be painful, especially
when it unmasks the real terrorist activity in Palestine,
the state sponsored reign of terror orchestrated by the
Israel Defense Force against families in the West Bank and
Gaza Strip.

"A Little Piece of Ground" is a
beautifully written but intensely painful book. In today's
world most preteens and teens are saturated with televised
news and entertainment featuring violence and arch-villains.
Laird's book is careful in describing conditions in
Palestine, without targeting any religious group or
ethnicity as the culprit. But what kids may need help with
as they work through the multi-layered drama is placing
blame where it belongs, on the politics and policies of
Israel, not the world-wide Jewish community.

At heart, this is a gentle book that takes you into the
inner life of the Aboudi family as seen through the eyes of
the 12 year old Karim, a boy desperate to stretch his legs
and play football and struggling to cope with his love-sick
older brother and annoying younger sisters. "There is no
place to play properly," he complains because the Israeli
tanks have trashed the local school and playing field as
well as areas throughout his home town of Ramallah. And
there is so little time to play, or get groceries for that
matter. The life of a typical Palestinian family is a life
lived under curfew, where families are forced into nearly
unbearable hardship, trapped in an apartment for days and
weeks at a time, where stepping outside for a breath of
fresh air may result in a bullet to the head.

The book also takes you on a journey into Ramallah during
moments when the city is free to breathe before residents
are locked up once again like criminals in holding cells.
Karim's father is a merchant from a well-to-do village
farming family. What should be a happy family week-end in
the country becomes a nightmarish journey due to illegal
settlement activities in the country side. At an impromptu
checkpoint, Karim's father is forced out of the car and made
to strip at gunpoint. He is joined in the humiliation by
other men out for a family ride and a village elder in long
flowing robes. Later at the farm, the act of harvesting
olives nearly ends in the execution of the family by Israeli
settlers who have decided that what has belonged to the
Aboudi family for generations now belongs to them.

As the action progresses, Karim is befriended by a classmate
who has grown up in a refugee camp and is determined to
retake a bulldozed lot to make a proper place to play
football, and to create a secret den as an after school
hide-out. The effort to retake "a little piece of ground"
brings them face to face with Israeli tanks and soldiers and
a near fatal adventure that takes the reader into the heart
of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

In addition
to being a book about the youth of Palestine, "A Little
Piece of Ground" has a message for the Palestinian people
suffering under a 37-year-long brutal occupation, the
longest in modern history. Before returning from the
village to Ramallah, Karim's father, Hassan Aboudi sat
silent at the family meal, but then "straightened his back
and looked round the table. 'Endurance,' he said. 'That's
what takes courage. Decency among ourselves. That's where
we must be strong. When they steal from us and try to
humiliate us, the real shame is on themselves.'"

Published in August 2003, "A Little Piece of Ground" was
written with the assistance of the Palestinian author Sonia
Nimr and published by Macmillan Children's Books, ISBN 0 330
43679 1. Cost UK £8.99 CDN $18.99. Discount prices are
available.

Note: I was unable to purchase "A
Little Piece of Ground" through Amazon.com in the United
States, perhaps due to pressure from you-know-who, but was
able to do so through their United Kingdom store. The book
also appears to be available through the Amazon Canada site
and may be purchased through your local bookstore by using
the ISBN number (I hope, unless you-know-who has gotten to
them too).

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